Montana
Standout Montana, SDSU Players Repping Home States In FCS Championship
“Why are FCS teams in the Dakotas and Montanas so good?”
That’s been a popular question when HERO Sports does radio hits in SEC areas of the country. These stations spend 99.9% of their college football conversation talking FBS. So it’s an understandable question when they want to get the lowdown on the FCS and how the Midwest has had a stranglehold on it recently.
Only three states have been represented in the last three FCS title games, including this year’s: Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
North Dakota State played Montana State two years ago, NDSU played South Dakota State last year, and SDSU plays Montana this weekend.
In each of the last three playoff brackets, 3/4 of the semifinals have been teams from Montana or the Dakotas. And the national title game has become the Mon-Dak Challenge.
Casual college football fans are generally surprised at the level of play in such rural states. They are even more surprised to learn some of the biggest contributors are from in-state players. This year’s participants, No. 1 seed South Dakota State and No. 2 seed Montana, both have 16 in-state players on their 2-deeps. In total, the Jackrabbits have 28 players from South Dakota. The Grizzlies have 48 players from Montana.
And plenty of them are the star players.
For SDSU…
Its top four pass-catchers are SD natives in wide receivers Jadon and Jaxon Janke (Madison), WR Griffin Wilde (Sioux Falls), and tight end Zach Heins (Sioux Falls). Mason McCormick (Sioux Falls) is a multi-year All-American offensive lineman. Gus Miller (Brookings) won this season’s Rimington Award as the best FCS center. Cade Terveer (Brandon) is a starting defensive end for the No. 1 FCS scoring defense. Tucker Large (Sioux Falls) is a dynamic safety and punt returner
For Montana…
The top five tacklers are Montana natives: LB Braxton Hill (Anaconda), safety Ryder Meyer (Fairfield), LB Tyler Flink (Missoula), LB Ryan Tirrell (Missoula), and LB Levi Janacaro (Missoula). Trevin Gradney (Billings) is a starting cornerback with a team-high five interceptions. Jaxon Lee (Missoula), TJ Rausch (Missoula), and Garrett Graves (Eureka) are part of a deep stable of safeties. Junior Bergen (Billings) is an electric wide receiver and punt returner. Offensive lineman Journey Grimsrud (Huntley) received All-Conference accolades this fall.
Why do these teams dominate a subdivision of 128 members?
Actually, being in such rural states is an advantage. FCS schools in the east and south are surrounded by FBS schools, fighting to sell tickets, keep alumni engaged in their product and not the P5 product down the road, get more media attention, and attract local and regional sponsors.
“I think the best football is played in the Dakotas and the Montanas,” SDSU head coach Jimmy Rogers said. “You look at FCS football, the couple states — well, we don’t have professional sports. We are the professional sport in a sense. That, I think is cool. … I think it’s cool to have a bunch of guys that take pride in playing for their home state. You can see it with the passion on both sides and how we both play. There’s a physicality to it. There’s an effort to it. It’s bigger than just playing college football. It’s representing something that they take pride in, and I think that you could see it.”
Pound for pound, Montana is as fervent of college football fandom in America. You’re either a Grizzly or a Bobcat, and there is a genuine dislike for the other side. NDSU is the lowest-subsidized public FCS-level athletic department, yet its facilities are FBS-level due to external support. And SDSU has more momentum than anyone in the FCS with newer facilities and growing external support after last year’s national championship.
You need to invest for national success, even at the FCS level where there is still a purity aspect of college football that’s been lost in the power conferences. It’s easier to invest deeply in football when you know there will be a return on it with such passionate support from fans and local businesses.
“It’s just a cool experience,” Hill said. “I’m the only one from my town [Anaconda] on the Griz. And then you have guys like Levi Janacaro and Tyler Flink. We go around the state of Montana [for recruits] and everyone kind of meets up and everyone is similar. Once you start developing a relationship with one another and you develop that team goal, it’s just fun. And then the fan base in rural communities is amazing. It’s special. You go to Missoula on Saturdays and half the town of Anaconda or wherever that player may be from is there and supporting you.”
Of course, several power FCS programs in the south and east have moved up to the FBS. That has seen the power shift to the Big Sky and Missouri Valley Football Conference, where before the CAA and SoCon had years of owning the subdivision. However, NDSU’s run of national titles began when teams like App State, Georgia Southern, and Coastal Carolina were still in the FCS. And recent move-ups Sam Houston, Jacksonville State, and Kennesaw State were rarely going toe-to-toe with top FCS teams in the playoffs.
Location also helps in recruiting.
The Dakota and Montana programs recruit regionally. But they also get players from the south or the west. Coaches at these schools will often say they just need to get recruits from out of the region onto campus and at a game. The towns, town support, facilities, investments, and gameday atmospheres can’t be beaten by other FCS schools and plenty of FBS G5 schools.
While the current age of recruiting has seen power programs dip into the Dakotas and Montanas more, there still are hidden gems in the states. Guys who would probably be 3-star recruits if they lived elsewhere are 0-star recruits because they don’t go to the big camps. Offensive linemen who are 6-foot-5 and 250-pound three-sport athletes are overlooked because they’re still developing and play in towns of less than 1,000 people. They’re then 300-pounders as college upperclassmen and NFL prospects.
“I don’t think a lot of people expect that out of us,” Heins said. “I think we’re a bit underrecruited. It goes to show the level of talent that we have here even if we aren’t in major cities. We’re hard-working kids in these states, we’re going to grow and be tough and know how to play football.”
There is also something to be said about playing for their home-state teams.
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For Montana kids growing up, sure they’d love to play in the NFL. But their football dreams are to play for the Grizzlies or the Bobcats. The heart and soul of the 2023 Montana team is the defense led by Montana guys, some of them former walk-ons who never faltered in their want to be a part of the team even though it took them four, sometimes five years to become a starter.
Montana star defensive tackle Alex Gubner is from California and said he didn’t know anything about Montana football when recruited. But he quickly learned as a redshirt.
“The moment I went in freshman year with coach Hauck and all the players, the team meetings and in the locker room, you understand that it’s a privilege and an honor to be on this team,” Gubner said. “Kids all over the state dream of putting on the Griz uniform. There are no pro teams here. We’re it. It’s either us or the neighbors. Guys like Braxton and Levi, it’s been their dream since they could walk to play for the Griz. And they’re living it out. It’s special to see so many guys want this for years and it’s finally coming to fruition.”
SDSU doesn’t have the decades-long tradition of Montana. But the Jacks’ rise in the 2010s from a playoff contender to a quarterfinalist to a semifinalist to now the juggernaut of the subdivision has brought new fandom across the state. And with that comes kids who grew up watching those former teams and are now current members. There is something to be said about keeping in-state recruits from getting out and also staving off the transfer portal when the core of your team has a unique sense of pride playing for your program.
“It’s big boy football up here,” Jaxon Janke said. “A lot of us are farm kids growing up. We learned what hard work is. It’s a testament to each school to recruit their areas. If you look at the comparison between SDSU and USD, we have way more dudes on the team from South Dakota and we’re more successful. We like to say that goes hand-in-hand. This team is super-connected, and being from the same state is a part of that.”
Montana
Montana Lottery Big Sky Bonus results for April 19, 2026
The Montana Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at April 19, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from April 19 drawing
05-13-15-17, Bonus: 01
Check Big Sky Bonus payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
When are the Montana Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 9 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky For Life: 8:38 p.m. MT daily.
- Lotto America: 9 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Big Sky Bonus: 7:30 p.m. MT daily.
- Powerball Double Play: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Montana Cash: 8 p.m. MT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 9:15 p.m. MT daily.
Missed a draw? Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Great Falls Tribune editor. You can send feedback using this form.
Montana
Rural Highway Stalker In White Pickup With Dark Windows Terrifying Montana Women
The Ole’ Mercantile is a busy place by Grass Range, Montana, standards.
The community of roughly 125 people sits along a long, lonely network of two-lane highways connecting Billings with points north along Montana’s Hi-Line.
For drivers pushing toward Lewistown, Malta or Glasgow, the store’s lights are often the first sign of anything for miles.
Of late, they may also offer a chance of identifying the person driving a truck local women say is stalking these roads.
Owner Krista Manley told Cowboy State Daily her store is outfitted with a top-of-the-line camera system that offers a 360-degree view with no blind spots. Four overlapping cameras capture her property, the Wrangler Bar and the full stretch of Highway 87 frontage running through town.
Fergus County investigators now hope that footage — and Manley’s willingness to comb through hours of it — can help identify the driver of a newer white Ford four-door pickup with dark tinted windows, no front license plate and a chrome grill guard.
The truck is at the center of the most recent reported highway stalking incident.
Lizette Lamb, a 48-year-old traveling health care worker, says she was nearly run off the road the evening of April 10.
Now a growing chorus of similar accounts from women across north-central Montana are popping up on social media.
At The Ole Merc
Travis Lamb, Lizette’s husband, took to Facebook to post about what happened to his wife on one of the loneliest stretches of highway in Montana.
Travis told Cowboy State Daily Lizette pulled into the Ole’ Merc Conoco in Grass Range between 7 and 8 p.m. to grab a drink. She later remembered a pickup was backed in alongside the cafe: a newer white Ford four-door.
“Kind of gave her the heebie-jeebies,” he said. “My wife has worked in a prison and stuff like that, so she’s used to kind of going with her gut.”
She bought a drink, got back in her Ford Bronco Sport and headed north on Highway 19 toward Glasgow.
About a mile and a half down the road, she realized the white pickup was behind her. Through the dark tint, she could make out the silhouettes of two men.
She slowed down and edged toward the shoulder to let them pass. They slowed with her. She sped up. They sped up.
By the time she reached Bohemian Corner 23 miles up the road, Travis Lamb said, his wife knew something was wrong.
There were no other vehicles in the lot, so she didn’t bother pulling in. She tried to call Travis. No service.
She tried 911. The phone beeped, displayed a red message and disconnected.
Truck Gets Aggressive
The white truck continued to shadow Lizette along Highway 191. About two miles from where the road crosses the Missouri River, coming into a construction zone, the pickup got aggressive.
Travis said the truck rode so close to the Bronco’s bumper that his wife could no longer see its windshield, only the grille.
Then it pulled out as if to pass and swerved into her, he said, in what he described as an attempted PIT maneuver — the law-enforcement technique of clipping a fleeing vehicle’s rear quarter to spin it out.
PIT stands for Precision Immobilization Technique, and this tactic is used to stop a fleeing vehicle by forcing it to turn sideways, causing the driver to lose control and stop.
“She was fortunate, kind of timed it to when they went to turn into her and hit her, she sped up,” Travis Lamb said. “And they missed.”
That’s when Lizette Lamb pulled her Springfield XDM 9mm pistol out of the center console. She didn’t point it, but she made sure they could see it.
The white pickup hit its brakes, threw a U-turn in a spray of dust and gravel, and headed back toward Grass Range.
The Video
“I thank God that it did happen to her and not somebody else, because I know my wife is more than capable of defending herself,” said Travis Lamb, an Iraq War combat veteran, who eventually reached out to Manley at the Ole Merc.
Then, when Manley reviewed the surveillance video from the Merc’s camera system, she found no sign of a white Ford truck.
“We have not found evidence of them at our store or at the three businesses that come along the highway right there,” Manley said. “That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
“My default is to absolutely believe women, and she (Lizette) was, she was rattled.”
Manley holds a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and ran the research team at Procore Technologies before going into business for herself.
When reviewing the video, Manley logged the times Lizette arrived and left, and then watched the highway for an hour after.
“We’re absolutely not arguing the authenticity of the report in any way, shape or form,” said Manley. “In my previous life before I had the store, I actually was a memory and cognition researcher. I understand how stress impacts memory.”
The Echoes
Travis Lamb’s Facebook post went off like a flare.
He tallied 36 accounts of similar experiences in roughly the same swath of country stretching across prairie and badlands in one of the least populated parts of Montana.
The pattern in many of the comments was consistent enough to be unsettling: a white pickup, often a Ford, sometimes with out-of-state plates, tailgating women on isolated stretches of two-lane after dark.
One commenter described being followed by a white truck north of Grass Range three years ago around 10 p.m., tailgated with brights on at more than 80 mph until the truck peeled off in a different direction.
Another described a white Ford pickup near Harlowton trying to force her to stop, then waiting for her at a gas station. Another recalled a white pickup with North Dakota plates in the same area.
In Wyoming, one poster described two men in a white truck with Washington plates on Highway 120 between Cody and Meeteetse who tailgated her, tried to push her off the road, then cut in front and slammed on the brakes.
Other women described different vehicles — a dark Escalade, a small white car, a black double-cab — but the same script: tailgating, refusing to pass, brake-checking, dead zones with no cell service.
Easter Night
One name in that Facebook thread was Joni Hartford of Lewistown, who told Cowboy State Daily she had her own near-identical encounter on Easter evening just days before Lizette Lamb’s.
Hartford, who works in insurance, had dropped off some belongings to her son, a football player at Rocky Mountain College in Billings.
She stopped at a gas station on her way out of town “for a pop,” climbed back into her red 2014 Ford F-150 and headed north on Highway 87 around 7:30 or 8 p.m.
“I noticed it right after I left Billings,” Hartford said of the pickup behind her. “It was right behind me and I kept thinking, ‘God, this vehicle is super close.’”
About 15 miles out of town, past the racetracks, she pulled toward the white line and slowed to 60 mph on a long straightaway, hoping the truck would go around. It wouldn’t.
“He was so close behind me, I couldn’t see his taillights, but I could see his marker lamps on his mirrors, his tow mirrors,” Hartford said. “So I knew it was a Ford pickup, and I knew it was like a three-quarter or a 1-ton. It was a big pickup.”
She couldn’t make out the color in the dark. She called her husband.
“I said, ‘This pickup is tailgating me,’ and said, ‘It’s really kind of making me nervous, because if I had to stop for a deer, it would run me over. It would run me off the road,’” Hartford said.
“And he goes, ‘Well, just stop.’ And I said, ‘I am not stopping. I’m in the middle of freaking nowhere,’” she added.
She made it through Roundup with the truck still on her bumper.
North of town, climbing toward Grass Range, Hartford caught a lucky break with an Amish buggy sluggishly clapping up a blind hill and slowing traffic.
“I darted around the Amish buggy, right before the blind hill, and he couldn’t get around them, and I just gunned it, and I was going probably 90 mph just to put space between us,” Hartford said. “I never seen him again.”
Hartford carries a .380 pistol. She had it out and on the seat. She didn’t show it — between the dark and her tinted windows, she wasn’t sure the driver behind her would have seen it anyway.
When Lamb’s post crossed her Facebook feed, Hartford said the parallels stopped her cold.
“It’s the same exact situation,” she said. “I can’t say for certain it was the same person, but it sure seems like it was the same person.”
Hartford said she believes the driver is hunting for circumstance: single women, after dark, on a corridor he knows is desolate and short on cell coverage.
“They’re targeting them at gas stations,” she said. “That’s the only place they could have found me, because it’s the only place I’ve stopped.”
The Candidate
Penny Ronning, cofounder and president of the Yellowstone Human Trafficking Task Force, had a similar drive in 2022.
She remembers it as the only time in nearly a year of solo campaign travel across 41 Montana counties that she felt afraid.
Ronning, then a Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress, was driving from Billings to Havre for a campaign event.
Instead of taking the interstate, she chose the back roads — north out of Winifred on Highway 236, a route that runs about 30 miles of gravel through some of the most remote country in the state before dropping into the Missouri River Breaks, which Ronning compared to a Montana version of the Grand Canyon.
As she entered the gravel, a four-door white pickup with blacked-out windows pulled in behind her.
“That was what made it frightening,” Ronning said. “It was that I was followed.”
Ronning, who has spent years working on human trafficking policy and prevention, was careful to push back on the framing that has circulated on Facebook around the Lamb case — that the white-pickup encounters are likely abduction attempts tied to trafficking networks.
“Human trafficking is the use of force, fraud or coercion to compel a person into commercial sex acts or labor against their will,” Ronning said. “Just because someone is being followed, that doesn’t rise to the level of human trafficking.”
The most prevalent form of human trafficking in the United States, she said, is familial trafficking, one family member trafficking another.
In Montana, she said, labor trafficking is also common in construction, nail salons, illicit massage businesses, hospitality and domestic servitude in pockets of high-end real estate.
Sex trafficking almost always begins with someone the victim knows.
The Watch
Back in Grass Range, every white pickup that rolls past the four-corner blinking light is now turning heads.
Manley said her store has worked closely with the Fergus County Sheriff’s Office on past incidents, and her cameras are essentially a standing resource for investigators.
She also said the response on social media has dismayed her, commenters questioning whether these highway stalking incidents happened at all, or suggesting Grass Range itself isn’t safe.
She believes her store, and others like it in remote pockets of Montana, are informal refuges.
“We’ve all been there, whether it’s in a snowstorm or where we’re just uncomfortable driving like this where we’re just like, ‘Oh my gosh,’ you see the big lights and you’re like, there’s a beacon of safety, essentially,” Manley said.
She said that her eyes are open to potential threats along the isolated highways connecting Grass Range to the rest of the world.
“We know that it is a highway that has a reputation for, you know, trafficking, drug moving, all of those different things, and that’s why we are as diligent as we are,” said Manley. “We really care about the safety of our community, our employees, and our customers.”
Manley remains in contact with the Lambs.
“She told me, ‘I’m not going to quit looking,’” said Travis, explaining how Manley is arranging for the Lambs to review the footage themselves.
Travis figures that perhaps, “Instead of a white Ford, maybe it’s a tan Dodge.”
He added, “I’m hoping somebody’s like, ‘I know that pickup.’ That’s what I’m praying for.”
So is Lizette, who told Cowboy State Daily, she’s thankful for the response to her story. She’s also thankful she was traveling with her sidearm.
“Unfortunately, that’s the world we live in now. You know, Montana, in the middle of nowhere,” said Lizette, who encouraged anyone else with similar encounters to come forward.
“This is just a reminder that it is happening,” she said. “It is real.”
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
Montana
Montana Lottery Powerball, Lotto America results for April 18, 2026
The Montana Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at April 18, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Powerball numbers from April 18 drawing
24-25-39-46-61, Powerball: 01, Power Play: 5
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Lotto America numbers from April 18 drawing
18-21-22-32-42, Star Ball: 10, ASB: 03
Check Lotto America payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from April 18 drawing
10-16-29-31, Bonus: 13
Check Big Sky Bonus payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Montana Cash numbers from April 18 drawing
06-08-09-20-22
Check Montana Cash payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
When are the Montana Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 9 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky For Life: 8:38 p.m. MT daily.
- Lotto America: 9 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Big Sky Bonus: 7:30 p.m. MT daily.
- Powerball Double Play: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Montana Cash: 8 p.m. MT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 9:15 p.m. MT daily.
Missed a draw? Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Great Falls Tribune editor. You can send feedback using this form.
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